There is some truth to is. After all, in German culture, there always has been this drive to excel.
We have always had few raw materials, not particularly fertile soils (for the most part), nor a particularly blessed climate- and our geographical situation, smackdab in the middle of the Continent with not much of a coastline, could hardly be worse.
So you had to excel in being hardworking and/or ingenuous, thrifty as well as observant. The downside has always been that many of us are too pedantic, too much sticklers for the details.
I think it’s not a coincidence that we do have one of the world’s highest incidence rates of autism (highly functional or not) - there is a strong genetic component to it. Yours truly is one of those, too😀
Perform well, and you will get praise, perform badly and you will bring yourself and your family to shame.
Maybe this is it…though I utterly fail to see what was supposed to be so imperialist about the few colonies in the Second Empire. Yes, there were some who thought that they could take on the British Empire, but in 1912 they rolled over and declared the naval arms race ended.
Simply it was more or less that in 1870, with the Second Empire, Germany was back on the international stage, from whence it had de facto disappeared in 1648.
As a fellow Freeper named dfwgator once wrote, Britain, Russia and France were unhappy with the „new boy on the block“, especially since France had invaded the German lands once per generation (at least) from 1635 to Napoleon, making clever use of the power vacuum in Central Europe. Who doesn’t like a neighbor who can be used as a punching bag? 😁
After all, Germany‘s military power was, until the 18th century, mainly used in the Balkans to repel the Ottoman onslaught. Well, it is no coincidence that France and Turkey were allies, on and off, from 1541 to the Crimean War. It was not until WW one which found them as enemies.
Same stuff with the British. There had never been a war between the British and us until 1914 - London even supported Germany often in her fights against France.
But as you all know: Nations have no friends. They are not individual human beings, after all.
Nations have interests, and, although these mostly change slowly, they are not immutable.
“... our geographical situation, smackdab in the middle of the Continent with not much of a coastline, could hardly be worse.”
I have thought that not only that Demography is destiny, but Geography is destiny. Or maybe Geography creates Demography...
German = autism. LOL !
Me too. From Dad’s side of the family, although they were from Slovakia and Poland